CHLOE / ***½

Distributor: Sony Classics
Release Date: March 26, 2010
Genre: Drama
Running Time: 96 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

If Amanda Seyfried wants to keep making weepy chick flicks like the Avatar-killing “Dear John” and the upcoming “Letters to Juliet,” that’s actually fine by me. As long as for every two of those she squeezes in a film like “Chloe” that lets her show off her unique charisma, she can make as many crappy chick flicks as it takes to pay her bills.

“Chloe” is actually a remake of a French film called “Nathalie…” that I happen to have seen while I was working at an awesome independent video store on a college campus that pretty much stocked every movie ever. Director Atom Egoyan (Oscar nominee for “The Sweet Hereafter”) is at the helm of this remake, which disproves the notion that every English speaking remake of foreign films is inferior to the original.

Seyfried stars in the title role, a beautiful young escort who gets an interesting business proposition. Julianne Moore and Liam Neeson play Catherine and David Stewart (no relation to the Eurythmics member or the former Oakland A’s Cy Young winner), one of those wealthy couples that appear to be perfect on the surface. When Catherine plans David a surprise birthday party and he somehow “misses his plane,” suspicions she must have had for years come bubbling to the surface.

Catherine wants to confirm her suspicions, and hires Chloe to interact with her husband and report back to her. Naturally, introducing a third party to an assumed monogamous sexual relationship is going to complicate matters, and that’s exactly what happens. Chloe also involves Catherine and David’s son Michael (Max Theriot of “Nancy Drew”), and things spiral out of control.

Egoyan does a superb job building the tension and revealing the story slowly. Moore and Neeson are old pros who not surprisingly can handle emotionally complex material like this. It’s Seyfried (and to a lesser extent, Theriot) that really surprises with the depth of her performance. Hopefully she’ll get the chance to show wider audiences that she’s capable of more than looking longingly at Channing Tatum. Those of us that saw “Chloe” already know.

Theater: AMC Oakview 24, Omaha, NE
Time: 1155 am
Date: April 8, 2010

CLASH OF THE TITANS / *½

Distributor: Warner Bros.
Release Date: April 2, 2010
Genre: Fantasy
Running Time: 118 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I have never seen Desmond Davis’s 1981 version of “Clash of the Titans.” I just think it’s important to know the perspective a critic is coming from, and I came into director Louis Leterrier’s (“The Incredible Hulk”) re-telling of the story with very little prior knowledge, and no attachments of any kind.

The story follows the son of Zeus (Liam Neeson), a demigod named Perseus, who is destined to save mankind from the wrath of the Gods. Perseus (Sam Worthington of “Avatar”) is discovered in a casket in the middle of the ocean with his dead mother by Spyros (Oscar nominee Pete Postlethwaite). You know, your classic Hollywood Meet Cute.

Anyway, Perseus grows up, and in that time the mortals have become disenchanted by the lack of bounty they’ve received from the Gods and decide to go to war with them. Obviously the Gods don’t take too kindly to this, and they fight back. In the crossfire, Perseus’s entire family is killed by Hades (Ralph Fiennes). Perseus vows revenge. Meanwhile, Hades wants his Brother Zeus’s permission to run wild on the humans, to remind them who is in charge and place them back in the human’s good graces. I think hurting people to get them to love you is a bizarre concept, but maybe it’s just my lack of understanding of Greek mythology.

Hades intends to wipe out the entire population, but will spare them if they agree to sacrifice Princess Andromeda (Alexa Davalos). Why they don’t just do this straight away I don’t know. I also didn’t understand why I was supposed to care whether Andromeda lived or died. She was barely featured in the movie and there was nothing at all worth mentioning about her character, yet a big part of the climactic scene involves her fate. That’s one of the movie’s biggest problems – none of the characters are memorable.

But the biggest problem with “Clash” is by far the 3D. Wanting to get their hands on some of that Avatar money, the team behind “Clash” went back to work on their finished film and added 3D, and boy does it show. The 3D effects are quite frankly atrocious, and look extremely bush league and obviously tacked on. The movie doesn’t have much else going on besides special effects, so this was quite the disappointment.

“Clash of the Titans” will probably open to many millions of dollars, and many will probably like it a lot more than I did. It’s just that after a film like “Avatar” showed the amazing power 3D can add to a movie, “Clash of the Titans” represents an abuse of that power.

Theater: RDM Westroads 14, Omaha, NE
Time: 730 pm
Date: March 30, 2010 (Promo)